Why I’ll Never Pull My Fic

Pull: to remove one’s own fanfiction stories from fanfiction archives for any reason.

Pull2Pub: to remove one’s own fanfiction stories from fanfiction archives with the intent to commercially publish said stories.

I just want to say it, because it seems to be the assumption that an author will pull his or her fic at some point.

I will never pull my fic.

I’ll never Pull2Pub for many reasons:

I think it’s wrong to profit from someone else’s intellectual property unless permission is expressly given, and when Steph allowed fanfiction to be written using her world and her characters, she wasn’t giving us permission to make money off it. Even with the names changed I have no right to call those characters ‘mine’. I might be ridiculously attached to a few of them, SSE Alec for example, but that doesn’t make him belong to me. Alec still belongs to Steph, even if he’s called Bob or Steve or JohnCarlisle ;)

My stories simply aren’t popular enough. In fact, according to one blog, I’m a ‘newbie’ in this fandom simply because I have no stories with reviews over 1k, regardless of the fact that I’ve been here and involved for over 2 years and have 28 Twilight fanfiction stories to my name. Sigh.

Most of my stuff is too canon and when it’s not it’s far to risqué for any publisher to touch, even the faux-publishers.

I’m too lazy to retcon my stories into true original fiction. I may as well use the energy to write a new story.

Most fics aren’t pulled to publish though.

There’s an argument for the possibility of fandom/Real Life crossover, which is admittedly scary. But when archives exist like Archive of Our Own where you can ‘orphan’ (remove all author information while still leaving the story online) your fics, it becomes unnecessary.

Fear of fic being yanked from FanFiction.net for Terms of Service violations—archive it elsewhere (and this is what I’ve seen usually happen).

Leaving fandom—When I eventually flounce (quietly, more of a fade, really, if anything), I’ll leave my fics up on both FFn and AO3. Considering the content of most of my fic, I think the safest place will be AO3 when I’m gone because it doesn’t have the restriction on MA/NC-17 fics that FFn does.

I put a shitload of hours into my writing. Why on earth, when it’s been up for so long and well received, would I want to pull it and keep it in a dusty old file on my computer that could crash and burn at any moment, never to be seen again?

I treasure every review that I get. No way would I devalue those by yanking the fics they were given for.

File Sharing

I’m aware that there are google docs and file share repositories where pdf’d fic is held when a fic has been pulled2pub or just pulled, and fic is getting archived just on the possibility that it might get pulled. Personally, I think this is fantastic in the case of Pull2Pub because charging for fanfic is bad, m’kay? I doubt very much that any of my fic is archived at these sites (see above re: I’m just a ‘newbie’ in this fandom), but I really don’t want to see it end up there. No, I don’t have any right to Stephs characters but I did write that shit, you know? I want my penname on it. I want a link to my FFn or AO3 profile on it. When people are copy pasting and making pdfs there’s no guarantee that my name will even be on it, let alone a link to where readers could find more of my stuff. I’ll never pull my shit so it’s not necessary to make pdf’s of it. If you want to read offline or on an ereader AO3 has download links in all the major ebook formats AND it has all those links and authors notes and shit embedded within. I’m quite happy for these files to be file shared or archived.

The Future

Ten years from now, will people still be into twific? It’s possible. I’m reading BtVS fic from 5, sometimes 10 years ago. Think about the future though. In ten years, will I still be watching my hits and review counts on the fic I’ve written over the last 2 years? Maybe, maybe not, but if there is still demand for twific in ten years, those of us that leave our shit online will be laughing while the ‘BNA’s’ of today will be long forgotten.

Oh. I’ve heard some anti-pull2pubbers say things like ‘when an author says they’ll never pull, I’ll start counting the days until they do it’. Feel free to start counting. See you in ten years or so. Twenty. Keep track ;)

This was a great article and as a reader, I appreciate and admire writers like yourself who do not pull their fics. The writers really do not own the stories, fan fic is technically a violation of copyright. Hence why many authors do not allow their characters to be used in fan fics. But I do understand when a writer creates these stories, it is their idea of the story line. It’s a no win situation to an extent. And as for the published fan fic, no idea how that happens. The publishers must be walking a very fine line to get away with it. Not to blather on and take over your column, but I did buy a very well known fan fic. I loved it as a fan fic but the published version was the exact same, just name and characterization changes. Very disappointing and pretty much cured me of ever buying published fan fic again. So thank you for being you and not pulling your stories as well as standing up for what you believe. And as for the newbie comment, well, the fandom likes their labels I suppose. Regardless, you are a wonderful writer and your stories are always stories. Not cookie cutter as so many others are.

Warning

I'm an opinionated tart, I read and write slash (m/m) fanfiction, and I'm kind of a deviant, so if you're under 18 or you are uncomfortable with any of that sort of carry-on, you should probably click that back button.